It was only 2.5 hours long . . . I’m kinda impressed. Seems like 3rd time was a charm! After the first hour of logistics and honoring resolutions, they spent time talking about planning issues, public market, Tree Lane, 4th Quarter Police Report, Public Market and Oscar Mayer.
Here’s the video if you want to watch yourself!
Here’s my summary:
GETTING STARTED
The way they do their roll call you can’t hear responses. It looked like Mo Cheeks, Barbara McKinney, Mike Verveer and Tierney were missing at first. But it looks like they mostly showed up.
The did honoring resolutions for
– Alder Amanda Hall who resigned (including a great elevator story by Alder Shiva Bidar) – it was essentially the first 20 minutes.
– Black History Month
– Developers for installing solar
They also had a poetry presentation
Presentation: Poetry Recitation by Charles E. Payne – “Madison Flood Prose”
Suspension of the rules
CONSENT AGENDA
As reported here except:
– #88 and 89 – regarding merging the Treasurer and Finance department is referred to the next council meeting
– Registration on 115
– Mike Verveer also requests item 84 also be referred with 88 and 89
– Sheri Carter corrects number 78 – refer to Feb 26 not 28
– Matt Phair asks to exclude number 78
– David Ahrens asks to not exclude 76 – no one objects so it is on the consent agenda
– Ahrens separates 18
All of the recommendations are as above except 4 – 18, 26, 78, 77, 105, 115
Rebecca Kemble requests to move 115 to the top of the agenda – mayor asks her to wait with that motion.
Motion passes.
PUBLIC HEARINGS
48 minutes in . . . if you’re wondering when and where to watch video.
They open and close items 5 – 13 (ALRC items and Board of Public Works Items), there were only registrations to answer questions.
The mayor hands the chair over to Council President Samba Baldeh for this item.
1004-1032 S. Park St.
Public Comment
John Hoepner (sp?) from T Wall Enterprises speaks in support. In 2015 this project was approved for 162 units, in 2017 they got 157 units approved and its back again to add 16 units. They need the revenue from the additional units.
The speakers rearrange the order of the speakers and have handout so there is a delay.
Carrie Roth handed out a letter from the neighborhood association and Sarah Eskrich’s comments about a conditional use. And 5 letters from the neighborhood. They have been before the council many times, people are not there today because they don’t know about the changes and given the weather and tight timeframe they couldn’t let people know. They aren’t concerned about the 16 units. They want the conditional of approval on parking that was removed by the Plan Commission that requires them to include parking in the rent with an opt out option. She says this was a compromise between the alder and developer and it was approved before. The neighborhood is concerned about parking. They worked on this compromise in good faith and they are not sure why it was removed. The need is as great as it was before and perhaps a bit more than before. They have an alternative solution that T Wall proposed, they have a solution they should be talking about. The other speakers will address these issues.
Consuelo (?) speaks next. She says that there is only a capacity for 40 vehicles in nearby streets, they have alternate side parking and people come and park their cars in their neighborhood and ride the bus. They don’t have capacity for 173 more vehicles.
Cynthia Snyder (sp?) She says she lives 5 houses from the development. They are full of cars already and the businesses need the parking. She loves the idea of bundling the rent with the parking.
Daniel (?) Also from Lakeside St. He says he has to ask people to move when they park over into their driveway. He just asked someone to move today who had parked a foot and a half into his driveway. He says more neighbors is going to make this worse.
Helen/Lisa (?) She thanks them for their prior approval with this parking/rent condition. She wants that to stay the same, they are not opposed to the development. The developer can accommodate the extra 16 units by using parking at the adjacent building. There is concern about if the building is sold and there are ways to make sure the 16 spaces will be available in the future through easements. Parking was important last time you approved this and its important now.
Alex Allias (sp?) Also concerned about the previous condition of approval. She says this was something they worked with the former alder on and it was a compromise with the developer. She points them back to the statement from the former alder’s statement. She reads from it. It’s difficult to find parking, Traffic Engineering has some ideas about how to fix things in the future but they want this condition of approval.
One speaker left.
Questions
Marsha Rummel asks T Wall staff if they have seen the amendment and if they are ok with it. The staff say that they “believe” they have seen it, it was some time ago. They are open to it as long as it was the same as the previous approval. The parking at the Wingra facility is something they offered but they would prefer not to have it.
Ledell Zellers asks someone from the neighborhood to answer – why are you thinking that the opt in vs opt out is preferable? We have the same opportunity. Helen/Lisa comes up to the mic. She says that offering the parking with the lease encourages the renters to park in the building, right now the Wingra building has about half of the residents parking on the street. That’s why it overburdens us, not just the residents, but their guests. If they don’t have a need for a parking space they can opt out. It’s based on their experience at Wingra 1.
Discussion
Alder Allen Arntsen moves approval and the amendment. If available the lease will include a parking space, but the renter has an option to opt out.
Shiva Bidar clarifies because it was all off mic and lots of people were talking. They are now talking about the amendment and there was a motion with a second, and then a motion and second for the amendment.
Arntsen says the amendment is a modification of a condition that was there before and was taken out by the Plan Commission. The prior condition required the parking space to be offered with the lease and no additional rent could be charged for parking. It did allow the opt out. At the Plan Commission they had technical questions about the prior conditions not saying how the opt out worked, so he added language about the credit is the current rental cost of the parking space. The other issue was that when it was approved there was one parking space for every unit. It’s at about a 9/10th ratio of parking, that is consistent with other approvals, but because its close to the hospitals and good transit it’s reasonable to think people might not have cars. This is why he added the “if available” but he’s not sure it’s needed. He says T Wall has empty parking spaces across the street in another development and they had offered that, planning staff had concerns about applying conditions on a different property and that is why it changed from the previous language. He understands concerns but this was the deal 2 and 4 years ago and it was highly debated, its been before UDC 8 times and this is the 3rd time here and it didn’t seem fair to the neighbors to lose this condition because the developer is adding units. The apartment building will be fine, but the neighbors shouldn’t have to forfeit this agreement that they bargained and negotiated for and was included in the past. He understands the staff’s concerns, but he wants it put back in as a show of faith with the neighborhood.
Sheri Carter is concerned about their ability to ensure that the tenants are credited for the parking spaces. She wants to ask T Wall a question, otherwise she will ask staff. Heather Stouder says that she shares the concern about enforceability. The city can’t and shouldn’t micromanage this kind of opt out clause across the city. They would have to keep track of the rate of parking and there are legal questions about rent control and restrictions they have. It would be concerning to have a specific price put on this – for enforcibility and legal challenges reasons.
Ledell Zellers asks if it is the average of what is around there, or how would it be calculated? She also has questions that people at Plan Commission has heard parking concerns a lot and one of her questions is how this area compares to other areas. She says this is a RP3 parking area where people can purchase parking permits to park on the street and not meet the 2 hour parking restrictions. Transportation staff says that Sabrina looked at this earlier and for this area .39 permits per space. Other ares have 2.3 and 2.4 permits per space downtown. Zellers clarifies that in some places downtown there are 2.3 or 2.5 people trying to park in each space where as this is only 4/10ths of a person.
Ledell Zellers asks Heather Stouder about her professional planning opinion on rent of parking space in the rent amount instead of having the tenant opt for the parking. Stouder says she can see if from different angles. She says that she understands residents in the area need spaces for themselves and guests. She can understand tenants not wanting to pay and parking on the street. For equity reasons this is a regressive policy, it would disadvantage people who don’t have a car or need a renting space. It if was just included that wouldn’t be fair. The proposed language provides that opt out language that tenants could choose to opt out for any reason. One of her remaining concerns is that there is no way to know what the tenants will get back. The developers should regulate themselves. The true cost of parking could be $150 but they might only get $30 or 40 back. It’s a concern, its an equity concern or still potential for a regressive policy. She doesn’t think this is the intent, but its hard for the city to manage that.
Larry Palm asks City Attorney Michael May if “one parking space” is clear enough, should it say “off-street”. May says its clear enough because it has to be parking controlled by the developer.
Traffic Engineering jumps back in with more information about the RP3 parking. He says some of the streets in the area have RP3 restrictions of 2 hours and some do not. Lakeside St. does not have that restriction. So people can park there 48 hours instead of 2 hours without a permit.
Zellers asks why the residents couldn’t petition to add that to the RP3. Staff say it would be available for the street and staff could review their request.
Steve King says that the description from the traffic engineer explained why the numbers don’t fit reality. He says that there are over 1000 people on staff at the hospital and clinic and there is more hospital facilities in the area. He says that hospital employees park blocks away from the hospital. He doesn’t think that this should be solved on the backs of the neighborhood. He thinks this is a good compromise worked out by the neighborhood and developer, they have an opt out clause and let the market figure out what the prices are. He says we need to have a huge discussion about parking in the city because it is a huge livability issue for neighbors and residents. in this area, he has to believe what they say when they say they can’t find a parking spot near their home. He walks and drives by there and he feels they should trust the neighbors and go with the compromise that they worked out.
Shiva Bidar agrees with the compromise but has a question about not wanting to know how much people are being credited. Should we just leave it with an opt out and let the market work it out. She thinks it would work itself out without saying that people should be credited. Or am I making too many assumptions? If they charge the same, why would they rent there?
Arntsen says that the “crediting” language is in there (there might be better language) to make sure its a neutral decision, you don’t want to subsidize people with cars, you’d prefer they didn’t have them, and that is a possibility with the hospitals being there and the business being right there. He has gone back and forth on staff. Matt Tucker (Zoning Administrator) suggested that they could have the Zoning Administrator approve the language. He tried to do this as cleanly as he could, given the prior condition and the concerns addressed.
Zellers says that she cannot support this, we struggle with affordable housing in Madison and this is way too big of a risk of shifting cost for people who own cars to those who don’t own cars and we don’t have a way to reasonably monitor this. If we want to get to market, that allows the tenants to decide if they want to rent the parking. In terms of equity and affordability, this pressures it more. Would we do this for all developments. District 2 is slammed with parking problems and not enough on-street parking and it could be cuz of the Constellation and Galaxie – do we want all those provisions in all our developments. She cannot support this approach to this issue. That said, she totally agrees we need to take a look at the issues in the city about parking and parking in neighborhoods. She doesn’t see that this is an appropriate approach to the issues, she will be voting against.
Rummel supports this amendment. She thinks equity is an important questions, we have to think about the future of cars, eventually hopefully they go away. We have developers build a building to envelope cars, and they are expected to house the vehicles as well as the people and we’re not going to solve that now. She says the issue of parking and affordable housing and equity are important – she says that in her district they provide parking at cost in WHEDA tax credit buildings, and guess what, people don’t park there because they can’t afford it. So, at some point, they have cars. This is a big sticky issue. Just because its affordable housing don’t assume they don’t have cars. People have cars and they need to go somewhere. This is a good compromise. The market rate of this apartment will need to be tested by the developer. They will know the market rate for the parking, they will know what it costs to build and pump water, etc. She thinks its a good compromise, we did approve something similar before and we created expectations that this will address.
Bidar agrees with Rummel, she says that we have buildings where they have parking and the parking is half empty. We don’t want that either. As we know we have housing that is not affordable and to add $150 for parking people will park on the street. In many of the newer buildings, parking is not full. We built space that is not utilized to its full potential because people can’t afford it and we push people onto the street and that causes other issues. We haven’t found a good solution in our current processes.
Amendment passes on a voice vote with a few people saying no besides Zellers.
Project passes seemingly unanimous on a voice vote.
BACK TO PUBLIC HEARINGS
Item 15, 10024 Vally View Rd, they recess the public hearing and refer back to Plan Commission.
Item 16, 1936 and 1938 Atwood Ave. 1 registrant to answer questions. Public hearing closed. No discussion. Passes on a voice vote.
Item 17, 1848 Waldorf Blvd. No registrants, close public hearing, no discussion, passes on a voice vote.
6502 MILWAUKEE ST & 6501 TOWN CENTER DRIVE
Public Comment
Philip Kline is in opposition. He is familiar with residents that live there that are unhappy about things like trees being cut down where there is a creek. He says this is a part of a balanced development but not everything needs to be developed. He says there are problems with entrances from Milwaukee St and Srecher Rd, 100 parking spaces, traffic increase and sizes of the buildings tower over the previous buildings. There were trees, monarchs, honey bees, wildflowers, conservancy of this property would help the emotional distress of the residents. He says that when she went to a meeting there wasn’t approval of this project, but now it looks like there is. He says that the fire department didn’t know about this and they wonder how this occurred. He wants to know about mitigation for the monarchs and honey bees. He says he was on the County Board 88-90 and was on the Town Board Plan Commission in the Town of Dunn. He says development isn’t always a good thing for property, it might have been zoned a long time ago, but this might not be the correct zoning now. He thinks it is environmentally important for ducks and geese, etc. He says it should be rezoned to conservancy, to solve traffic issues. He thinks 100 more cars with all the stop signs is an inappropriate use.
Donna Buchert – she resides next to the property. She says it will be a 5 story building, she is against and has been since its inception. She says this has been going on for several years. She is against because of traffic – 2 more driveways onto Milwaukee and Specher Rd, 100 more cars on both streets is insane. Last time the builders said there was only one meeting, they lied and said now there are 2 buildings with 50 – 100 apartments. The second reason is the environment, they have ducks, geese, sand hill cranes, monarchs and bees. For the past few years the city has come in and mowed down the grass and destroyed the ducks nests. They hadn’t touched the property in 10 years and not they mowed down the milk weed plants and cut down the trees. There is also a row of wild flowers where the bees are continually. The monarch butterflies and bees are on the endangered list and you will be responsible for the elimination of their habitat. If you don’t care and all you care about is the money, approve it. If you see the flaws I see, reverse the decision and make it a conservancy.
Nancy opposes but does not want to speak.
Katherine Bruce supports and available for questions.
Questions
David Ahrens says the file was crated in 2002 and there is an amendment in 2009 and he doesn’t understand what is before them, what part of the 55 page document should he be looking it. Heather Stauder says that the attachment is the history of the MetroTech Development plan that was adopted in 2002. This is for lots 6 & 7. The proposal approved is for 200 unites in L shaped building, with commercial space on the 1st floor. The Plan Commission had a long discussion about the parking and determined the staff should work with them to reduce the parking – they will work with the developer on that.
Ahrens asks if the parking issue is the only thing? He says everything was highlighted and its hard to figure out. Stouder says that the density was lower when approved and the plan commission thought it should be increased even more than what is being proposed today. There are 6 acres, this is a 35 units per acre. Ahrens asks if this is the Hopman site? She says that there will be a map with numbered lots in 6 & 7 are in the southeast corner of the plat. Ahrens asks if there were other comments from other residents. Stouder says there are condos to the west, there was only one speaker in opposition and she is here this evening. This site has been through years of approved projects. In the last 3 years a similar project was approved but did not move forward. There was a similar level of opposition at that time.
Rummel asks about if this is an expired GDP, can you explain if the 2002 GDP is expired and can they amend it. Stauder says that the planned development for Metrotech is good. The GDP for these two lots was not recorded. The question is if the GDP would be amended.
Palm asks traffic engineering about the traffic counts on Sprecher and Milwaukee St. They don’t have the numbers there, but they did look at the capacity and they decided they have lots of access and this isn’t a high impact development and they don’t have concerns about traffic. They do have 4 way stops here and one day they might signalize that to add more capacity to the area. They don’t have a lot of concerns. They will continue to monitor it for infrastructure upgrades.
Palm realizes they don’t have numbers, but how does that compare. They found the numbers and 3,350 is the number. Palm asks how that compares to the 2 lane closer to E. Washington Ave. Traffic Engineering says it is much, much higher. Palm says he remembers 10,000, they say something off camera I can’t hear, but it sounded like they were confirming 10,000. Palm says that newly built areas should be able to handle this amount of traffic and staff nods their heads.
A motion is made off camera – I presume it was to approve and it passed on a voice vote seemingly unanimously.
ITEM 115 – OSCAR MAYER PLAN
Again, talking off mic, I can’t hear, but I think they were trying to move 115 out of order, there is no objection. There is a motion off mic, I presume to approve.
Satya Rhodes Conway is there to support the report. She says the committee met for almost a year, they covered a series of topics they thought were relevant and then moved to objectives and recommendations, but she wants to point out a few things. She points out the implementation plan, they want to make sure this plan does’t sit on a shelf. There will be other plans for land use that go forward. In the report they named staff and agencies and commissions who are responsible and asks them to pay attention and make sure those things happen. She says there are also recommendations about displacement and she wants to have a plan in advance of redevelopment so that the neighbors and businesses aren’t adversely impacted. She also wants to draw attention to the wetland area and transportation issues. She encourages adoption.
Steve King says he was an alder appointed to the committee but only attended 1 time because of his schedule, but he thanks staff and Satya for their process and work that was done. It was a fast process as far as city planning goes and the product shows that. Its well thought out and he wants to thank people who put time into this.
Rebecca Kemble thanks Alder King for his one time appearance at the committee but also for following along. She says it was fast and efficient with a huge amount of information and good public engagement. The leadership of Satya Rhodes Conway and support of staff was excellent. This was a well resourced committee and she hopes when they create ad hoc committees, be do equitable resourcing. If all committees has the resourcing and leadership that this one did, we’d be doing our staff a favor by having documents that are easy to follow.
Larry Palm says that it was more of a challenge to get to this point, he appreciates this was fast, but we are only half way there. He says that he was the alder in Royster Clark area when they closed and they did a planning process to reimagine the site. When Oscar Mayer closed the traction to do this was hard to get going, he wishes they got going faster. The council should make it a strategy that if large sites become no longer used, they should quickly proceed with a procedure for future re-use. Strike when there is no developer, future uses already imagined, etc. So the developer doesn’t steer the conversation. We got going slowly, this is only half the effort. The will be work based on the outcomes of this report. This body’s job is not done, the developer can propose things right now and if they aren’t in our plans, there is not as much that we can do to influence it. We first thought there would be a clearing of the site, but now the buildings will be retained and reused. That changes the look and feel of the site and that makes the job more difficult. On this agenda there are other things that are in motion on this site, this is going to be a complicated site. He’s glad there is a document with our desires, but we need to refer back to that and support the next steps to makes sure the vision becomes reality.
Passes on a voice vote.
ITEM 26 – CHIEF OF POLICE 4TH QUARTER REPORT
At first no one says anything.
David Ahrens then asks about the incident types and arrest data and asks about burglary data. Again, discussions off mic – and then the police agree with something he said. Ahrens says that there is a variance between the crimes and arrests. Over this past year, has there been a higher level of arrests for incidents. Vic Wahl says that the clearance rates have a lagging indicator and its reported and calculated oddly, so its not a good measure of effectiveness. Burglary has a low clearance rates, that is not inconsistent with national data. They’d like to increase the number and they have tried strategies. However, that is not too surprising. Ahrens says assaults are 9% of all arrests, what are the clearance rates on that. Wahl says assault offenses is a broad term, he doesn’t have it off the “tip of my brain” but it will be higher than burglary. They are reported in a more timely manner and we are more like to know each other, have a description and have physical evidence, so that number will be higher. Ahrens says he’d like to know an overall clearance rate but that is tough to do. Ahrens asks if the data is going to be consistent with the IBR. Wahl says that they transitioned a few years ago from UCR to IBR but they kept UCR in their reports but they are going to be consistent and use IBR. Ahrens says that so much of the focus has been on weapons and shots and you are reporting in great detail and that doesn’t show up in IBR. Wahl says shots fired is not an IBR or UCR category. We often don’t know what the incident was. They feel that it is important to track separate from IBR. I didn’t understand how they are reporting casings or that conversation.
We are not at 2:23 in the tape if that helps . . . if you’re trying to follow along and watch only the parts you are interested in.
Lots of confusion . . . it’s painful to watch, skip that part.
ITEM 78 – TREE LANE
Mic isn’t on, I think they are moving referral. More confusion. Discussion actually starts at 2:25.
Phair had a question about what the rationale for referral is. If this is an urgent situation, why are we waiting another 3 weeks. Lots of off mic discussion.
Paul Skidmore says that at the time Finance Committee considered this, but there have been further discussion and additional information and they are asking for delay to bring the funding for wrap around services and bring them back together so they have a total solution, instead of just one of the pieces.
McKinney says that we can’t do this piecemeal. Its not just providing more police officers and coverage, its a broader set of things the community needs.
Bidar asks O’Keefe about the referral to bring both resolutions together, this other resolution is by title only, what is the process for the language to be produced. O’Keefe says that this will be referred to the finance committee in time for it to come back to the next council meeting. Finance will meet February 11th and the resolution will be completed by Thursday for that meeting.
Bidar asks if this would go to Community Services or anything else? O’Keefe says it only goes to finance. Bidar says that this is sole source and doesn’t go to those committees?
Phair says that he agrees they should do this together, he says the strategy going forward seems disjointed and he hopes they can do better working together.
McKinney says they put Heartland in place quickly and maybe they should have done more due diligence and she hopes when this comes to Finance, she hopes they won’t just look at dollars but strategies and measurements about how the money is used. She wants to look intensely at how they can make the lives of residents and the community around them better.
ITEM 105 – AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND PUBLIC MARKET FOUNDATION
Public Comment
Megan Ballard lives downtown at Galaxie, moved here from Minneapolis 3 years ago and is on the Public Market Foundation Board. They are the fundraising arm for capital investments and will be operating the Market. They have 10 board members, have quarterly Advisory Committee meetings to get feedback, they applied for 501(c)(3) status, they are working on vendors, awareness events and secured $1M in fundraising. She is here to give an update and thank them for their support.
Anne Reynold in support, available for questions.
Discussion
Ahrens is opposing the collaboration agreement because of “4 words” in which the collaboration agreement says the “best efforts” to raise $2.5M. That is different than the budget for this year and previous years. It required $2.5M and now the collaboration agreement doesn’t reflect the budget language and it now has “squishy” language. The best efforts language doesn’t require the fundraising and that is different than what we have been told by now. They have raised about $1M and that is far short of the goal. The importance of this is not to penalize the public market, but that the taxpayers will have to pony up the difference and that is not an acceptable cost.
Passes on a voice vote, I only heard David say no.
INTRODUCTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
– 54622 – Noncompetitive selection services with 4 one year renewal options for annual preventative maintenance for street sweepers – referred to Finance.
Move adjourn!!!
(Ignore the photo below . . . testing something . . .)
